Sparring sounds fun, but brings up the added concern, for the hotel too, about safety and liability. If someone were to get hurt, or start bleeding from a kick that was too hard, or aimed wrong, then I don't think to hotel would want that on their hands.

Other than that, I'd love to see kosplay kombat! We find people who are cosplaying from the same, or related anime/games, and have them go at it. Like Squall vs Cloud, or Sora/Roxas vs various Organization members. Stuff like that, and a regular, non-cosplay sparing for others. The Kosplay Kombat could even be judged by who stays in charter with their fighting, Like Inuyasha use the Iron Reaper Soul Stealer every once and a while when he slashes. Stuff like that.

Btw, I'm not really here, as it's before 1pm my body must be sleep typing!

If I said that I never feared the Darkness, but indeed welcomed it, would you still love me...

zcat68 wrote:I've been thinking about it for a while, and I wonder if you might change how the judging for the Cosplay Contest works to shorten it time wise.

I think that adding an award for fan favorite would be a good idea. But for me - it didn't feel that the judges took all that long. The cosplay was scheduled for two hours - I know that it started a little late. I didn't check my watch at the end (cuz I don't have one!) How much did it go over time-wise? The MC (I'm sorry - I don't know her name) was very entertaining and showing the AMV winners during the break was great. It's unlikely that I would have seen them otherwise. I got the sense that that was improvised, but maybe next year it could just be part of the plan? And if there's a fan parody contest (another idea that I like) those winners might be shown then too.

Anyway - it's clear that many of the cosplay contestants worked long and hard on their costumes and their presentation. I feel that taking the time to judge them well is sort of owed to them. I thought that there were an amazing number of really good costumes - especially for a small con. The people who won certainly deserved their awards but there were also a number who didn't win who had very high quality costumes. It could not have been an easy decision for the judges. Con organizers should know that the quality of the masq contestants has already been commented on at the Cosplay.com forums. You can't have a good masquerade without good contestants and good contestants are more likely to enter if they know that their hard work will be judged carefully and fairly.

But I don't want to initiate another episode of the on-going drama "Masquerades: Costumes or Entertainment" ^_^ I really just wanted to say that I thought that this year's masq was great and not too long!

The AMV contest winners were planned to be shown from the beginning. The thing that wasn't planned for was the double screen. A last minute change made that possible and I think it worked very well.

As for the judging, the craftsmanship was pre-judged so it would not be rushed. It was just presentation and skits that were judged and I agree they should not be rushed but we had a bit of a time crunch. We ran over by more than 20 minutes which caused the auction to be rushed and ran over by 20 minutes as well. Of course that was a problem for the next panel as well. Things were put back on track by moving one panel to another room and things ran smoothly after that.

The cosplay did pretty much start on time. It was actually scheduled for 1 and half hours, 3 PM was the seating time with a note that the starting time was 3:30 on the schedule.

Ok, I didn't keep that short. But that is what happened. With the promise of some new space for panels and video rooms we can give the cosplay more time next year. Our big concern was that we can't sacrafice our only 2 rooms for events for 3 hours to just one event..... we want to try to meet everyone's needs.

Thank you for your feedback and we will work hard to iron out all those little kinks for next year.

Thanks for the info. It shows how good your MC was - she made a planned event look like a clever improv! I've seen professional (non-anime) conferences with far bigger staffs do a lot worse than a 20 min. delay - not saying that it wasn't a concern for you - just that you did a great job moving things along even with the inevitable snags. I know that fairly dividing time in the main events room is always a concern. One thought (though I can foresee some objections to it) would be to just end the masquerade after the last contestant and do the awards later - maybe at the same time as announcing the winning AMVs and tournament winners? That would give plenty of time for the judges to deliberate (as well as tally a fan favorite vote if you guys decide to do that) without tying up the main room. Just a thought.....

Funny you should mention the later announcement idea. It was just mentioned on our staff forum about an hour ago by one of the staff. The cosplay director said the idea wouldn't work so good since some of the cosplayers leave right after the event due to a long drive home.

We will keep working on it and do the best we can to keep everyone as happy as possible. Thanks again for more ideas.

Bob_the_Sniper wrote:It would be great to see a "sparing" room, there was a lot going on in the halls and some of the tables were annoyed that we were in the way. It could be a special room where people can act out varios fights, of course this would be only semi-seriously and for fun. No hard hitting or grudge matches.

For concerns of safety of both persons and materials (like the walls, floor, etc.), having a designated, con-sanctioned sparring area would be insane. Not only would it require additional insurance (at a huge fee), but the hotel would risk property damage as well by sanctioning this event.

Needless to say, having a sanctioned sparring area is pretty much out of the question. If you want to spar, take it outside.

My only major concern is the hallways. This year, I thought the Artist's Alley crammed everyone and made it hard to navigate through. I also saw it as a safety hazard. Plus, those doors were a major concern as well! I think I saw one or two people getting hit by an unsuspected opening door. If the hallways were wider, then I think there wouldn't be as much as space trouble as usual.

Artist's Alley was actually improved over last year. The tables at the crunch points were smaller this time and more of the larger tables were pushed towards the end of the hallway where there was a wider area.

It was intended that the smaller tables at the crunch points not even be there this time but last minute problems caused us to add more tables unexpectedly.

I plan to revise the set up and keep it the way it was planned originally for this year. That would be 6 tables total.

Luinta wrote:the congestion could have come from the fact that there were 200 or so more people this year! XD

A very valid point. Still Vu is right. I was guarding a door during cosplay set up and there were a lot of near catasrophies when people came rushing out those doors. We are working our a solution for that problem and hopefully next year it won't be such a fire hazard.

I would like to know everyone's thoughts on the tickets being given out for cosplay rather than lining up in the hallway. To preface this, registration got swamped and we dropped the ball for some of you because we just plain forgot to offer tickets. However we will have lots of signs next year to remedy that. We also realize that we didn't have the staff set up like we were supposed to to call the numbers....we are working on that as well. Otherwise were there any comments or ideas on how to improve that? The main reason we did it that way was to prevent the congestion in the artist alley hall way while waiting for the cosplay.

pettruchio wrote:I would like to know everyone's thoughts on the tickets being given out for cosplay rather than lining up in the hallway. To preface this, registration got swamped and we dropped the ball for some of you because we just plain forgot to offer tickets. However we will have lots of signs next year to remedy that. We also realize that we didn't have the staff set up like we were supposed to to call the numbers....we are working on that as well. Otherwise were there any comments or ideas on how to improve that? The main reason we did it that way was to prevent the congestion in the artist alley hall way while waiting for the cosplay.

The numbered tickets is a GREAT idea for the cosplay. I have a few suggestions though that may make things easier. How about when people register or pick up their preregistration when they first get there, ask them if they are wanting to attend the cosplay. If the answer is yes, give them a ticket in that order. ( I thought it was a good idea to have some better seats put aside for preregistered people like you did this year since there should be benefits to preregistering. . . ) Because otherwise then whenever you say the tickets for the cosplay are available you will probably end up with a line somewhere to get them.
Also, as far as the seating goes the better numbers this year were on the far left side of the room when you walked in. . .and then the later numbers got the middle seats right in front of the stage. Perhaps the best seats should be given to the people that arrive first, instead of putting them way on the side of the room.
So yah, those are my suggestions. . .but I definitely LIKE the idea of getting a numbered ticket to be let in. I really don't like having to line up for the cosplay/masquerade events at a convention as you end up having to miss so much and things just get kind of crazy because you have people lining up hours before.

Endless wrote: I have a few suggestions though that may make things easier. How about when people register or pick up their preregistration when they first get there, ask them if they are wanting to attend the cosplay. If the answer is yes, give them a ticket in that order. ( I thought it was a good idea to have some better seats put aside for preregistered people like you did this year since there should be benefits to preregistering. . . )

We actually had done this and once again dropped the ball. We had the earlier tickets set aside for prereggers along with their pre reg forms....but due to the mass crowds we had we just forgot to give tickets. We will work on that for next year though.

Endless wrote:Also, as far as the seating goes the better numbers this year were on the far left side of the room when you walked in. . .and then the later numbers got the middle seats right in front of the stage. Perhaps the best seats should be given to the people that arrive first, instead of putting them way on the side of the room.

I had no idea about this. We will definitely fix that for next year. That was part of the reason we set aside the pre reg tickets. Thanks for the suggestions.